Taking a break from the politics and cars* for a bit…

In comics/movie news, this week the embargoes started lifting on the Captain America: Civil War press and set visit reports; it’s been trickling out – lots of vague interviews (though Anthony Mackie‘s stuff was particularly entertaining); some neat discussion of Black Panther, and tacit confirmation of what we’ve all expected; that being Ant-Man going the other way and pulling out at least a little bit of Giant Man action.

Today, another trailer for the film is supposed to hit the internet aether, and rumor has it, we might see Spider-Man.

Huh. It is Thursday, and the general pattern with big Marvel news is that things tend to slip out on Thursdays right around lunchtime on the east coast. The timing works, if nothing else.

Now, I’m pretty excited about this rumor; I really want to see what Marvel’s going to do with Spider-Man, though a good bit of me doubts it’s actually going to happen (at least no more than that Vision eyeball reveal from that later-stage Age of Ultron trailer last year). I don’t actually expect to see Tom Holland (or more likely a stuntman) in the Spider-Man costume in the marketing materials today. The Marvel marketing machine, and it’s impressive skill at controlling the message has been absolutely airtight thus far; nothing has slipped out – not the tiniest bit from any cast or crew member, or in leaked marketing materials, or spy photos. It’s eerie how good they are; the message is totally controlled.

Part of me has half a feeling that nobody’s going to see Spider-Man until the first late-night showings before the May 6 release date. I think that would be pretty badass actually; Civil War is already going to win it’s release weekend; that’s a given; as word trickles out to the larger population who doesn’t pay attention to internet rumors that Spider-Man is in the movie; that might actually guarantee that the film’s second weekend beats the first.

That said, I don’t think Marvel’s going to want to sit on it that long. The reason some sort of Spider-Man reveal might happen today has everything to do with the Distinguished Competition. Batman v. Superman comes out in two weeks. That marketing machine is really starting to spin up right now. If Marvel slips Spider-Man out into the larger public consciousness this weekend, even just a little bit, they’re going to own the entertainment news cycle for the next week, probably enough to slide right into the bump they’re going to get from Daredevil hitting Netflix next weekend, which is going to be huge (so big that there were rumors of B v. S slipping a bit to not cross over with the weekend when all the superhero fans are going to be home for some Netflix and Chill. DC Comics marketing machine short-circuited; given that Batman and Superman (and Wonder Woman) are DC’s big guns all hitting at the same time; despite the misgivings a lot of people have about the movie, I would also not be surprised if Marvel doesn’t let slip the only hero out there with the marketing might to topple DC’s Trinity.

Oh well; we’ll see. If Spidey shows up today in hi-res official photos and video, you’ll know.

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* – I finally saw my first iM on the road that didn’t have me behind the wheel – a nice clean example in Electric Storm Blue. About time.